Garlands Go For Polaris
Mythe Farm on the Warwickshire Leicestershire border has been in the Garland family for over sixty years but it wasn’t until 2004 Joe Garland and wife Joanna decided to go down the route of diversification.
They saw an opportunity to use some of the 150 acres to set up a separate business focused on offering leisure activities to both corporate and private customers. More recently, the business has diversified further with the addition of a beautiful wedding and events venue with onsite accommodation.
Quad-biking was one of the key activities at the beginning along with archery and karting. Now, over 10 years on, the Garlands Leisure trekking centre is kept busy throughout the year with corporate events and team-building activities during the week and private groups including hen and stag parties during the weekends. The venue is billed as having all the lumps, bumps and slopes you could ever want for quad biking and the diversification runs happily alongside what is still a working sheep and arable farm.
“The most important focus for any trekking centre is to ensure that the machines are reliable and that they are safe and easy to use.” Says Joe Garland who has been running Polaris machines for three years and has just taken delivery of a new fleet of twelve Sportsman ETX. His main considerations when making his choice were build quality, reliability and price. He also is very appreciative of All-4 Ltd, his local Polaris dealer.
“The machines are used really frequently and are driven hard. We’ve had nothing major happen to them and when there has been a problem, All-4 has been quick to get it fixed. The weekends are exceptionally busy for us so if we have a problem during the week, it’s essential that the machine is up and running quickly. In my experience, the problem has been fixed, usually within 24 hours.”
There are nine full time and thirty part time staff working at Garland’s Leisure. EASI (European ATV Safety Institute) training was welcomed, as buying the machines through Polaris allowed the centre to train up new members of staff (every Polaris Sportsman, Ranger, and youth machine comes with one free training session with EASI).
Garlands received a European grant through DEFRA to do oak framed conversions to farm buildings, creating Mythe Barn wedding, conference and events venue, and currently they are installing a Solar PV system to generate their own electricity, to help reduce the carbon footprint. Other activities include several target sports and teambuilding tasks such as raft racing and bridge building and the business’s the current focus is very much on continuing to grow their market of corporate customers.